Local small scale farmers are set will benefit for Sh18million worth of technical support as part of a social-economic recovery initiative by an agricultural technology solutions provider.
The agricultural technology solutions firm UjuziKilimo has received support from Wadson Ventures; an Africa focused early-stage venture capital house.
Speaking when he confirmed the COVID-19 relief partnership agreement, UjuziKilimo Chief Executive officer Brian Bosire said the company will channel the support towards COVID-19 and locust invasion related interventions geared at facilitating swifter agricultural production recovery.
Accompanied by Wadson Ventures Partner, Evans Wadongo, Bosire expressed regret that continued use of non-data driven decisions on food production by economic planning and related stakeholders, has the potential to exacerbate the food crisis during the forthcoming post-COVID-19 period.
“At UjuziKilimo, we are delivering a platform that advances data-driven decisions for the world’s smallholder farmers by collecting, organizing and making sense of agricultural data. The partnership with Wadson Ventures will allow us to extend free access to digital tools to enable farmer support organizations to sustain smallholder farmer operations while fighting the pandemic and making our food production systems resilient during and post the COVID-19,” said Bosire.
Through the US$ 174,000 worth partnership commitment, Bosire said UjuziKilimo will provide intelligent agronomy information to eligible smallholder farmers affiliated to selected co-operative societies, national and county government agencies. Co-operatives interested in receiving free support should sign up by visiting the firm’s website.
“The partnership with Wadson Ventures will allow us to provide increased food productivity interventions through the award-winning UjuziKilimo Farm Suite solution. The solution to be provided to farmer support organizations countrywide provides cutting edge information technology, analytical and planning tools to help farmers enjoy faster recovery from the coronavirus pandemic and locust invasion impacts,” Bosire said.
He added that: “Both the Coronavirus pandemic and locust invasion episodes have visited untold suffering to local farmers ranging from supply chain disruptions, to crop destruction. This has occasioned massive losses and uncertainty that can be managed through applied technologies.”
On his part, Wadson Ventures Partner Evans Wadongo, noted that the global COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented challenges with low-income farming communities continuing to suffer heavy loses.
“Full or partial lockdowns to protect lives have affected food production and market access, not to mention the locust invasion challenge. At Wadson Ventures, we believe that the agricultural sector needs immediate and medium-term support to deal with these unfortunate eventualities. We are positive that our partnership with UjuziKilimo will go a long way in providing much-needed support to farmers, and by doing so, help in fighting food insecurity.”